https://github.com/Mic92/vmsh

Shell into a virtualized linux, with your own tools
https://github.com/Mic92/vmsh

hacktoberfest

Last synced: 3 months ago
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Shell into a virtualized linux, with your own tools

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/Mic92/vmsh
• Owner: Mic92
• License: mit
• Created: 2021-02-15T13:33:10.000Z (over 3 years ago)
• Default Branch: main
• Last Pushed: 2024-05-08T18:01:49.000Z (6 months ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-06-30T14:47:29.059Z (4 months ago)
• Topics: hacktoberfest
• Language: Rust
• Homepage: https://vmsh.thalheim.io
• Size: 1.59 MB
• Stars: 129
• Watchers: 6
• Forks: 7
• Open Issues: 21
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
# vmsh

Lightweight virtual machines (VMs) are prominently adopted for improved

performance and dependability in cloud envi- ronments. To reduce boot up times

and resource utilisation, they are usually “pre-baked" with only the minimal

kernel and userland strictly required to run an application. This in- troduces a

fundamental trade-off between the advantages of lightweight VMs and available

services within a VM, usually leaning towards the former.  We propose VMSH, a

hypervisor-agnostic abstraction that enables on-demand attachment of services to

a running VM— allowing developers to provide minimal, lightweight images without

compromising their functionality. The additional applications are made available

to the guest via a file system image. To ensure that the newly added services do

not affect the original applications in the VM, VMSH uses lightweight isolation

mechanisms based on containers.  We evaluate VMSH on multiple KVM-based

hypervisors and Linux LTS kernels and show that: (i) VMSH adds no overhead for

the applications running in the VM, (ii) de-bloating im- ages from the Docker

registry can save up to 60% of their size on average, and (iii) VMSH enables

cloud providers to offer services to customers, such as recovery shells, without

interfering with their VM’s execution.

# Reproducing the paper results

VMSH was published in Eurosys 2022. To reproduce the results shown in the

evaluation of the paper, we provide [dedicated documentation](EVALUATION.md).

# Usage

- Run `just pts` in one terminal to get a `/dev/pts/x`.

- Run `just qemu` in another terminal to spawn a VM.

- Run `just attach-qemu-sh /dev/pts/x` in another terminal to attach the first terminal to the shell which is spawned into the VM.

# Related work

Build small vm images with [microvm.nix](https://github.com/astro/microvm.nix)

# Referencing our work

VMSH: Hypervisor-agnostic Guest Overlays for VMs  

_Jörg Thalheim, Peter Okelmann, Harshavardhan Unnibhavi, Redha Gouicem, Pramod Bhatotia_  

**EUROSYS 2022**  

[[Paper](https://vmsh.thalheim.io/pdfs/vmsh_eurosys22.pdf)]

```

@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/eurosys/ThalheimOUGB22,

  author    = {J{\"{o}}rg Thalheim and

               Peter Okelmann and

               Harshavardhan Unnibhavi and

               Redha Gouicem and

               Pramod Bhatotia},

  title     = {{VMSH:} hypervisor-agnostic guest overlays for VMs},

  booktitle = {EuroSys},

  pages     = {678--696},

  publisher = {{ACM}},

  year      = {2022}

}

```